So God made a banker
Commentary: A commercial for the next Super Bowl?
February 06, 2013|Brett Arends
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To be read in the voice of Paul Harvey...

And on the eighth day God looked down on his planned paradise and said,
“I need someone who can flip this for a quick buck.”
So God made a banker.

God said, “I need someone who doesn’t grow anything or make anything
but who will borrow money from the public at 0% interest
and then lend it back to the public at 2% or 5% or 10%
and pay himself a bonus for doing so.”
So God made a banker.

God said, “I need someone who will take money from the people who work and save,
and use that money to create a dotcom bubble and a housing bubble and a stock bubble
and an oil bubble and a commodities bubble
and a bond bubble and another stock bubble,
and then sell it to people in Poughkeepsie and Spokane and Bakersfield,
and pay himself another bonus.”

So God made a banker.

God said, “I need someone to build homes in the swamps and deserts
using shoddy materials and other people’s money,
and then use these homes as collateral for a Ponzi scheme
he can sell to pensioners in California and Michigan and Sweden.

I need someone who will then foreclose on those homes,
kick out the occupants,
and switch off the air conditioning and the plumbing,
and watch the houses turn back into dirt.
And then pay himself another bonus.”

God said, “I need someone to lend money to people with bad credit
at 30% interest in order to get his stock price up,
and then, just before the loans turn bad,
cash out his stock and walk away.

And who, when asked later,
will, with a tearful eye, say the government made him do it.”

God said, “And I need somebody
who will tell everyone else to stand on their own two feet,
but who will then run to the government for a bailout as soon as he gets into trouble —
and who will then use that bailout money
to help elect a Congress that will look the other way.
And then pay himself another bonus.”

'We endorse the idea of voluntarism; self-responsibility: Family, friends, and churches to solve problems, rather than saying that some monolithic government is going to make you take care of yourself and be a better person. It's a preposterous notion: It never worked, it never will. The government can't make you a better person; it can't make you follow good habits.' - Ron Paul 1988

There is nothing wrong with providing a service (a lump sum of money) in exchange for a fee (interest). Capitalism 102.

Where in capitalism 102 does it say that you can create money and make loans out of thin air, without having any money to back it up. Where does it say that all risk of this practice should be eliminated with central banks to keep it afloat?

If we had full reserve banking, then them making loans with their own cash (or even other's cash) would be no problem, but fractional reserve banking is a total ponzi scheme and adds absolutely nothing to society, it merely leaches off it by taking interest on loans on money that they've created out of literally nothing.
10 minute cartoon on how fractional reserve banking works

(ETA: oh and of course this doesn't even scratch the surface on the Fed)

Last edited by TheGrinch; 02-10-2013 at 03:35 PM.

I'd rather be a free man in my grave, than be living as a puppet or a slave - Peter Tosh

The kids they dance and shake their bones,
While the politicians are throwing stones,
And it's all too clear we're on our own,
Singing ashes, ashes, all fall down...

There is nothing wrong with providing a service (a lump sum of money) in exchange for a fee (interest). Capitalism 102.

You fail big time. The thing that makes being able to loan money at interest valid is the very idea that it is a store of value that you had to work to create. Creating a promissory note out of nothing and charging interest on it is vlearly fraudulent to anyone who understands "Capitalism 102". And the points made in :God made a banker" are completely valid - they have no remorse about foreclosing on someone that gets in over their head, but then when they have made bad choices, they are "too big to fail" and "the global economy depends on them" and they run to the government to get bailed out - all the while giving themselves bonuses that the likes of us can only imagine.

Get a clue before you open your pie hole.

"The journalist is one who separates the wheat from the chaff, and then prints the chaff." - Adlai Stevenson

“I tell you that virtue does not come from money: but from virtue comes money and all other good things to man, both to the individual and to the state.” - Socrates

Where in capitalism 102 does it say that you can create money and make loans out of thin air, without having any money to back it up. Where does it say that all risk of this practice should be eliminated with central banks to keep it afloat?

If we had full reserve banking, then them making loans with their own cash (or even other's cash) would be no problem, but fractional reserve banking is a total ponzi scheme and adds absolutely nothing to society, it merely leaches off it by taking interest on loans on money that they've created out of literally nothing.
10 minute cartoon on how fractional reserve banking works

(ETA: oh and of course this doesn't even scratch the surface on the Fed)

That wasn't what the parody was about though. The our current banking system is evil doesn't mean banking is evil.

"All eyes are opened, or opening to the rights of man, let the annual return of this day(July 4th), forever refresh our recollections of these rights, and an undiminished devotion to them."Thomas JeffersonJune 1826

That wasn't what the parody was about though. The our current banking system is evil doesn't mean banking is evil.

See the thing about parody and satire, is that they may employ rhetorical devices such as generalization, not because they believe in the generalization, but because they're making a point by employing it (in this case, our current banking system, not the hypothetical way it should be or was).

Maybe you shouldn't be so sensitive like PC police, and try to comprehend their rhetorical point.

I'd rather be a free man in my grave, than be living as a puppet or a slave - Peter Tosh

The kids they dance and shake their bones,
While the politicians are throwing stones,
And it's all too clear we're on our own,
Singing ashes, ashes, all fall down...

“Banking was conceived in iniquity and was born in sin. The Bankers own the earth. Take it away from them, but leave them the power to create deposits, and with the flick of the pen they will create enough deposits to buy it back again. However, take it away from them, and all the great fortunes like mine will disappear and they ought to disappear, for this would be a happier and better world to live in. But, if you wish to remain the slaves of Bankers and pay the cost of your own slavery, let them continue to create deposits.”

— Sir Josiah Stamp, (President of the Bank of England in the 1920′s, the second richest man in Britain)